The Caprilicious Jewellery Blog

Hello folks, nice to touch base with you again. I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and Santa was kind to you. We had a quiet one with a couple of friends and we consumed more calories than we normally do in a month. And soon it will be 2017 - hasn't this year just flown by? It seems to me that it was only a short time ago that I was in India and now I will be packing my cases all over again.

I'm only playing this for you because I love the song, it is so catchy - in an act of genius Apple are using it in their latest ad for the MacBook Pro. Enjoy!

With my belly full of food, snoozing like a replete python seemed to be the order of the day. I did play with clay for a while, but my heart wasn't truly in it. I tried to remake the hibiscus I broke last week, but fo some reason I couldn't bring myself to finish the flower, eventually running out of bronze clay and doing a bit of shopping online to replenish my stocks. I made a little flower pendant and because the petals were shorter than the hibiscus it was infinitely easier to put together. I fired it in the stainless steel pan adding carbon on top once the first firing was done, instead of firing it first on a steel mesh and then moving it to the pan. I didn't want it to meet the same fate as my hibiscus.

You can see the charcoal still glowing from being heated to 500 degrees C. The two other charms are a little trial of a new bronze clay just to see if it fires well. This method ensures that the pieces are not handled between firings, hoping to reduce the chances of accidental heartbreak!

The next morning I crept down to the conservatory even before I had my first cup of tea and OMG, my kiln shelf had cracked right down the middle! However, when I took the pan out of the kiln and scrabbled about in the carbon, the three pieces of bronze had survived unscathed, and looked rather nice, although one of the Sunny bronze charms had shrunk a bit more than the other.

Colour Me Beautiful

Because I am addicted to colour, Caprilicious Jewellery is as a consequence colourful and highly visible. I take any opportunity to add a bit of vibrancy to my jewellery and soutache and seed beads have been a fabulous way of achieving this. Seed beads and braids are easily portable and I've been able to sit in front of the telly, sewing away all evening.I thought I'd make a couple of pendants strung on torque necklaces this week - little projects that weren't terribly time consuming and seemed ideal for a week of festivity.

With the two I made this week, I now have three of these little pendants on non tarnish enamelled copper wire torque necklaces. I really like making the necklaces - they are very strong, thick wire, moulded and hammered into shape. The pendants can be slipped off and the torques used on their own, or with other danglers.

That's me for this week, and this year, folks. See you again in 2017, same time, same place.Happy New Year to you all, take care and stay safe​xx

Hello readers, thank you so much for joining me on the blog today. I have been ever so busy over the last couple of days packing away all the jewellery I intend to show at my exhibition - I'd rather do it now, when I have the time and am in a calm frame of mind, than at the last moment, as I did last time. However, to be fair to me, the decision to have the show last year was taken at the last moment, so I just threw everything into a suitcase and hoped for the best - not a good way to chillax while on holiday, I can assure you.

Please consider yourselves invited to my exhibition, if you are in Bangalore on the 6th or 7th of February. Come up and talk to me - I would love to chat with you. Please tell your friends in Bangalore as well - Caprilicious could do with the support. If you are thinking of making a trip to Bangalore, why not kill two birds with one stone and make your trip at the time when I am around - I would love to see you.

I've been so exhausted with all the packing that I haven't actually had time to make much in the way of jewellery this week. A friend of mine in Mumbai bought a necklace, but wanted it altered, and a bracelet and earrings made to go with it, so I remade the jewellery to her specifications. In my opinion, statement jewellery should really be worn singly - each piece stands alone quite easily, but hey, she's the customer - and the customer is always right!

And then of course, I played with wire, which is my fall back/go to plaything of choice. I was watching my kittens play with a ball, and made what I thought was a reasonable facsimile of a stylised cat. When I showed it to Mike, he thought it was a chameleon!! I was shocked speechless - and that only happens once in a very long while, so he made the most of that phenomenon.

I was so surprised by his lack of imagination that I didn't even name the piece -and ended up just calling it 'Cat Playing with a Ball' as if it were a painting by an old master. I still think it looks like a cat - what do you say??

I had two strings of nuggets of Lodolite Quartz - this gemstone comes all the way from Brazil. A friend of mine was sorting through my bead stash when she came across them and went into raptures - apparently Lodolite quartz, also called Landscape or Garden quartz has inclusions of many colors and types, often having the look of gardens, landscapes, or underwater scenes. It is a stone associated with intense spirituality and meditation. It is thought to bring strong healing energies and is used mystically to increase ESP - and is also known as the 'Shaman's dream stone'.

My friend took one of the strand's of Lodolite off me, and pleaded that I made up the other strand into a finished piece - to her mind it was nothing short of a criminal act to keep it locked away in my stash.

Oh well, who am I to argue with someone who makes such an impassioned plea to release the spirituality bubbling out of the Shaman's Dream Stone? I put the lodolite with an amethyst geode, which itself is said to have many beneficial metaphysical attributes - but above all, is very beautiful. Now the necklace is ready to go out to someone who was meant all along to own and love it, and receive it's mystical powers. I wonder who that will be??

I spent my evenings slumped in front of the telly, exhausted from all the packing and a few pairs of earrings appeared from the lengths of wire I idly played with. I didn't bother to list them on my website - I thought I'd just put them towards the exhibition. Out of habit, I photographed them and when I showed them on Facebook, to my great surprise, two pairs were snapped up within the first ten minutes. The triangles were inspired by a design by Nicole Hanna, and the other two by a design by an Indonesian friend, Corinne.

Mike has a birthday this week and we're off to stay at Coombe Abbey - someone kindly gave us a voucher for a night's stay and I've saved it up towards the birthday celebration. I'll tell you all about it next week.That's it folks, that's all I had time for. Stay warm and dry, have a lovely week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same placexx

Hello readers, and lovers of unusual statement jewellery everywhere, it is nice of you to drop by the Caprilicious blog. A couple of weekends ago, I played with bronze clay and made a few bits and bobs that I loved so much, I wanted to use them straight away. I've written about Precious Metal Clay before and I have to say it is great fun to play with when it turns out right - I've had a few hit and miss results, but this time it was most definitely a 'hit'. These are the pieces that came out of the kiln and were shined up in a rotary tumbler. They acquire a heat patina which goes from silvery to copper in the same piece which is quite lovely.

The Spanish Sisters

I am so used to picking up a focal element and tailoring the piece of jewellery to it, that making a focal element seemed to be like designing the necklace backwards - for instance, how many holes did I want in each pendant? - would it be a pendant, or would I change my mind and regret putting in too many/too few connection holes? - I really found it hard to make a decision so early in the conception of a piece, but gave myself a brain ache and forced myself to make those decisions as I went along. The Spanish sisters, Bonita, Rosita and Jovita came out all shiny and bright eyed and went into little necklaces.

The three girls look wide eyed and up for any kind of mischief, what with those flowers painted on their cheeks, and instinctively I put them into colourful pieces of jewellery. Now that the season for brown ( perhaps I should call it russet to make it sound better) is here, one needs to counteract the reduction in daylight hours, the cooler temperatures and rain/snow by wearing cheerful clothes and accessories - in my book, that's called making your own sunshine.

A fourth Spanish sister awaits my attention, but she has to wait till later. Instead, I turned my mind to wire wrapping a little face cabochon I made from the last bit of clay in the packet - I cannot waste even the tiniest scrap, I'm just made that way. I quickly pressed it into a mould I made some time ago - I made a Sleeping Goddess last year inspired by a sculpture in Angkor Wat, but this time, I made a smaller piece inspired by a Carnival Queen. Since I had named the Spanish sisters, I didn't want her to feel unloved, so I called her Marina, the Carnival Queen.

Hung on a leather necklace from a hidden bail, I am confident that Marina will be loved by her owner, she is rather pretty even though I say so myself.The other pieces of bronze also went into necklaces and a pair of earrings, and I daresay the rest will follow in a couple of weeks.

Anatolia

Anatolia is the Asian part of Turkey, and was once called Asia Minor. The pendant from Afghanistan used in this necklace seemed to evoke the images of the belly dancers from Istanbul - the rustling bells in the fringe make a sound that is most definitely Eastern. The beads are made of polymer clay - the green ones were made to resemble Chevron Millefiori beads. The necklace would look great in the open neck of a white shirt, worn over blue jeans - a very stylish and effective though simple ensemble. Add hair gel, dark glasses and knee high boots and look like someone attending a film festival in Cannes! Equally wear it with an Eastern ensemble - this is definitely a piece of tribal fusion.

I have a new page 'Gifts' on the website which over time, I intend to fill with fairly inexpensive but pretty items of jewellery specifically meant for gifting away (or for yourself, if you have been good and feel you should keep it). Of course, a lot of the stuff on the 'Mini Statement' pages are priced so that they too could be gifted away - don't forget to look into those pages.

And, don't forget, I will be happy to gift wrap them and send them on to an address your choice if you require that service - make it easy on yourself. Now that we can actually use the 'C' word, it is time to get ready for the holidays, and the most sensible thing to do, I find (in my rare moments of being sensible), is to spread out the buying of presents over a period of time so that the finances balance out. I'm certainly always broke come Christmas, and it is a real pain because I want to go to the sales on Boxing Day and bend that poor credit card entirely out of shape. Every year, I say I will be good and every year, I do it again - no more resolutions, I say, this time around.I shall work on the Bling! section of the web over the next week or so, in time for the office parties. That's it for the week folks, catch you next Friday, same time, same place, have a lovely week in the meantimexx

Hello readers and lovers of statement jewellery everywhere, it is nice of you to drop by the Caprilicious blog. This week I've had time to put together a few multistrand necklaces - getting ready for Bling season in the main - there are only 89 days to Christmas and it will soon be the time of year for pretty things and gifts. I hope that some of you will be sufficiently enthused by what you are looking at to pick up your gifts from Caprilicious. I am happy to gift wrap and send the parcel to an address of your choice with a little card from you, all you have to do is ask.

The Shaman's Necklace

'Shaman are spiritual guides and practitioners, not of the divine, but of the very elements. Unlike some other mystics, shaman commune with forces that are not strictly benevolent. The elements are chaotic, and left to their own devices, they rage against one another in unending primal fury. It is the call of the shaman to bring balance to this chaos.'Classes of World of Warcraft

Labradorite is a Feldspar with a rich play of colours called Labradorescence, first discovered in Labrador, Canada. The North American Indians call it the Stone of Shamans - it is meant to aid clarity of thought, protect against negativity and from misfortune, thus bringing balance to chaos. I love it because it shines so beautifully when moved in the light -at one angle it is a boring grey stone, but move it a bit and Wow! it flashes with such brilliant colour one is simply carried away by its beauty. Combined with rare and beautiful grossular green garnets and a copper wire surround, the labradorite is superb.

Isabella

Inspired by Isabella Rossellini's shirt necklace in Death Becomes Her, this is my first 'Bling' necklace of the year. Ms Rossellini would look beautiful in a sack, but when she rose out of the water and glided over to her robe purring like a little panther, I just knew that one day I would make a necklace like hers. With plenty of crystals and hammered gold tone links, it shines beautifully, and although I haven't gone overboard, it is still pretty opulent.

Rouge

Coral, freshwater pearls and an ornate clasp - my muse was in seventh heaven. A pair of earrings complete the parure which is going to be worn with a black and cream lace dress and a little black net fascinator at a wedding.

Daytime Bling - Monet

This painting of water lilies by Monet has so many beautiful colours, and I have been collecting pictures of them to use as inspiration for a piece of jewellery for the longest time - here is the picture, and the necklace - You like?? I love...

Moonlight

This necklace was made for a moonlit walk along the edge of the sea, the breeze blowing in your hair, scarf and skirt billowing - dancing in the moonlight. The pearls and blue jade are ethereal, lending themselves to romance on a moonlit night. If I knew the lady in the picture, I would offer her this necklace.

La Principessa

Star

These two pairs of earrings are so organic, they almost made themselves - I just took the wire where it seemed to want to go and after a while, the earrings appeared as if by magic - they both started with the same material in the same quantities, but ended up being so different. The difficulty with organic designs is to know when to stop with the curls and squiggles and say "The End" !

That's it for this week folks. I have to report that my kittens are pretty useless at being helpers - they sleep most of the day and when awake fight with one another or eat me out of home and hearth - I sound like my mother complaining about her 'helpers' !! I go to my third Polydays in the Cotswolds this week and am sure to bring back some fabulous ideas to Caprilicious. See you next week, same time, same placexx

Hello readers, how nice of you to drop by - autumn will soon be here and the colours of my new statement jewellery collection are reflecting this. No, they are not brown and grey - they are bigger and brighter than ever, to zhush up the autumnal hues of rust, must and dust that most dress designers pick as being suitable for us during this season.

I will let you in on an open secret - I am a very shy person - and when I tell people this, they laugh at me disbelievingly. I am even intimidated by hairdressers because I cannot relate to them, and small talk with a stranger is a no go area for me - I usually come out looking like someone else's mop - they seem to have a pack instinct when they see me coming - there's no 'Hello moddom, would you like a coffee?' - it's all snip, snip, snip - and when they've finished, they make me look like the person they perceive - a raggedy Orphan Annie type on a bad hair day - and that's cos she's exactly who they see when I slink in, looking apologetic for breathing the same air! At the age of - well, older than many of you - I am now qualified to tell you how I overcame this using my passion for jewellery, and perhaps you will find you can do it too.

1) Spark A Conversation - Effortlessly

This is where Caprilicious comes in - wear one of your pieces of statement jewellery and you will find people coming up to you and complimenting you on what you are wearing. It doesn't have to be a massive piece of jewellery and you don't have to be blinged up to the eyeballs. Take Glamour Puss - one of the pieces I made this week - all it is is a piece of pink and black agate - but it is presented on a pink stainless steel torque, wire wrapped, with an extremely shiny Swarovski crystal square wrapped onto it - a definite conversational opening gambit if ever there was one.

﻿Glamour Puss﻿

The front and the back of the pendant

Obviously, no one can guarantee that people are going to walk up to you - you may have to do the walking - find someone in a nice ensemble and tell them you like it - instant spark! they will compliment you back ( people love a compliment and usually reciprocate - I'm sure you've noticed that) and Bob's your uncle!

2) Have Something to Say Prepared

When someone compliments your jewellery, don't just mumble your thanks or go the 'this old thing??....' routine- smile widely, tell them a little story about it - perhaps even how clever you were to find it - if it's a piece by Caprilicious and you have read the blog, there's a backstory all ready for you to tell.At Caprilicious, I attempt to make jewellery that is interesting and different - I have the occasional daytime, everyday piece - but even that is usually different from the norm - you have plenty to talk about.

These little lampwork beads were turned into daytime earrings, but they are so pretty, I'm sure you will be noticed when you wear them. I turned the leftover beads into bracelets with braided leather, so you can have a whole ensemble if you want one. They are made to resemble the spinning top I had as a child - I was only allowed to play with it if I promised to be very, very careful (?), and eventually it was used by both my siblings, probably with the same proviso, and in turn, by their children. It still exists in my mother's cupboard - waiting for her great grandchildren, I guess! Unfortunately, their toys of choice are likely to be an internet enabled mobile phone, so mum has wasted her efforts to save what has now become an antique heirloom - perhaps it will be worth something one of these days.

﻿Spinning Tops﻿

I had one of these as a child

3) Ms. Attention - To - Detail

Image from Chictopia

Be Little Miss Attention-To-Detail - wear the right piece for your neckline, to coordinate with your outfit - and if you are in Caprilicious Woman mode, dare to wear jewellery in a completely contrasting colour to your outfit - after all, an orange necklace with the outfit in the picture would be drowned out by the colour of the vest - the blue necklace is definitely the better fit.

4) Get Up Close and Personal

Once you have complimented someone about their jewellery, and received one in return, you have chatted about your sources for said jewellery and smiled at each other, you are fast becoming friends - after all you have found something in common - your love for pretty jewellery! Introduce her to someone you know, she reciprocates - and before you know it, you have a networking session going on right there, under your very shy nose - did you know that was going to happen?? I did! There are a few more tips on Reggie Darling's fabulous blog - Reggie's Advice For the Tongue-Tied Guest at Table Amongst Strangers, and I recommend this post to you. And of course, you must never get so carried away by your success by turning into a Conversation Hog! Click on the link to find out how not to do it.

5) Be Different - and Revel in It

When I was younger, all I wanted to do was to be like everyone else, to merge seamlessly into the background - I blame my mother for this (as I type I can hear her grumbling in the background 'you blame your mother for everything') - I was expected to be a Little Miss Muffet - but I was also expected to go out and fight my corner in the world of modern medicine when I grew up!And then I ended up in Britain, and have found that a lot of the time I stick out like a sore thumb, and there is no Marks & Spencer camouflage that works. It took a bit of getting used to, but I'm over the worst. I'm happy to be me and revel in being different. I wear Caprilicious all the time, and that helps me walk tall ( I'm only 5'2") and people come up to me and talk about my jewellery. I like to take the stuff I make on test runs, but sometimes they get sold before I get a chance - here's one of the pieces I made last week that lasted fifteen minutes on my pages...

﻿Freya﻿

It is most definitely evening wear, and I didn't have an occasion to wear it before someone from work snapped it up.

A statement jewelry piece by Caprilicious will give you confidence, help you stand out in the crowd of 'samey people', and allow you to start a natural conversation - the death knell to shyness. The end result is a helpful, natural connection. The best part? It’s a great excuse to start shopping!

That's it for this week folks. Have a good weekend and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same placexx

Hello all you Caprilicious women out there, I hope you are all relaxed and ready for the weekend, ready to go partying in your statement jewellery.

I have some exciting news this week - Caprilicious is due to have a second exhibition in January 2015. I am negotiating with the good people of Raintree, where I had my first exhibition, to find us a suitable weekend at the end of January when I am due to be in Bangalore visiting with my mother.

Lipstick on your Collar

That's right, I've made this necklace before - last time, I used the jasper I acquired from my friend BN with a coral pink howlite - I happened to have some pale, blush pink howlite lying around and a few black veined jasper beads left over from last time and they just seemed to cry out to be put together. I am by no stretch of imagination a 'pink' person, but I just love the combination of pink and grey/black - very cool and sophisticated. You wouldn't catch me in a pink outfit though - one has to draw the line somewhere! There are plenty of greys, blacks and whites in my wardrobe that could be accesorised beautifully by this necklace when I take it out for it's test run.

Paradiso

Mythical??

For the longest time, I thought seahorses were mythical creatures, like unicorns, phoenix', dragons, dinosaurs and pixies - only kidding, honest. I love the little critters, they are the cutest and I am always on the look out for them. I found an aventurine carved into a seahorse, so smooth and shiny - an instant love affair. With a little wire bail, and the addition of agates and glass beads as well as pearls, it was transformed into a cruisers necklace - or for someone going on a holiday to an island paradise. I used the colours in this photograph to make this necklace.

Paradise Island

Salome

Do you know the story of Salome?? It is from the New Testament - Salome, who by all accounts was a raving beauty and a femme fatale, who is hailed as the embodiment of female seductiveness and an icon of sensuality , did the Dance of the Seven Veils at her step fathers birthday bash - he offered her anything her little heart desired, and Salome, being as thick as two short planks, looked to her mom for an answer.

Her mom had dumped her first husband, and married his brother - she was extremely put out that John The Baptist had denounced her marriage as unlawful; and he didn't just say it once - he raved and ranted and denounced her from the rooftops, unfortunately prophets just don'tseem to know when to stop - to silence him she decided to get her daughter to demand that John be beheaded.

Salome could have asked for anything - gold, diamonds, pearls - but being a bit sweet and unworldly, she said 'what shall I ask for mommy??' and chose to obey her mother. The king had no choice but to behead the hapless John and present her with his head on a plate.

But on Herod's birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before them: and pleased Herod. Whereupon he promised with an oath, to give her whatsoever she would ask of him. But she being instructed before by her mother, said: Give me here in a dish the head of John the Baptist. And the king was struck sad: yet because of his oath, and for them that sat with him at table, he commanded it to be given. And he sent, and beheaded John in the prison. Gospel of Matthew 14:6-11

My necklace is named Salome - I'm sure it wouldn't have looked out of place during the Dance of the Seven Veils - men will lose their heads over the wearer - but hopefully in a nicer way than poor old John. I've tried to put nuances of sensuality and fiery desire into this magnificent necklace and the haematite gleams brightly in contrast to the hand carved black jade and the paisley howlite beads in the second strand of this piece.

Rita Hayworth as Salome

Warrior Princess

Her face is hand carved of ox bone, she wears a sterling silver and marcasite helmet, her helmet straps are fastened and she looks calm, yet resigned, as if off to do battle for a cause she believes in, wearing her regalia. A beautiful faceted citrine teardrop dangles below her chin - she is The Warrior Princess.

I teamed her with citrine and carnelian freeform nuggets, pearls and blue goldstone beads to make this piece.

Now that I've decided that there will be an exhibition, a bit of anxiety has started to creep up on me - yes, I know I'm being silly, and that I have five months to go - but I'm just a ' have everything ready ahead of time' type . So, I made some earrings - they will go on the website, and eventually make their way to the exhibition, or not, as the case may be - but at least I will have them ready in time.

These are sweet, and helped me watch one of my favourite movies 'The English Patient' for the n'th time as my pliers moved rhythmically along with the soundtrack. And then, with mental calm restored, now that I have enough earrings, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the truly righteous. Now all I have to do is to remember to carry them along - one time I did a jewellery party at my friend Gerry's house, and I left all my earrings and other little bits behind in the cupboard at home.

The world is out there waiting for them

That's all for this week, folks, I hope you have enjoyed looking at my bits and bobs - if you have, do leave me a message - I'm beginning to think I'm talking to myself. One of my kittens, Wilfred has found a spool of wire and is chasing it around the room, whilst Charlie has bumped into a wall and got a huge bruise on his nose - £50 to the vet and a clutch of tablets later ( I'm so in the wrong profession), he looks like a rugby player after a particularly violent scrum. Thankfully he is a kitten and not a child, or they would have had me up for non accidental injuries!Catch you next Friday, same time, same placexx

Hello readers, thanks for stopping by to read about the statement jewellery made at Caprilicious this week. It was my privilege to provide a piece of jewellery to the Children's Unit at the hospital as a raffle prize - the manager who requested it of me was very complimentary about the piece I handed in - I was quietly pleased with it myself, and the reaction on the Facebook page was heartening when I posted some pictures there. The carved jade flower had been lying around in my stash, just waiting to be used and this is a very worthy cause, very close to my heart.

If you're wondering what the mention of statement jewellery in the opening line was all about - I've been reading blogging guides - and the theory is that a googlebot, which in my imagination looks like the picture above, worms it's way into a website and if the raison d'être of the blog is mentioned in the first few sentences, the botworm gets the message - and when people look for 'Handmade Statement Jewellery', the Caprilicious Jewellery website comes up in a Google search - having done this for a few weeks, I was quite gratified to find that I haven't been misguided by the bloggers guide.However, I don't know any woman who goes to Google when she wants to look for handmade statement jewellery! I certainly wouldn't do a Google search to look for jewellery, would you?? What beats me is that knowing this fact doesn't make me chase the botworm any less frantically - just shows how competitive I really am, I suppose, and also that I like to test a theory before I accept it as common wisdom.

Anatevka

Anatevka was a fictional shtetl in Imperial Russia where the musical Fiddler on the Roof was set. We went to the Eutin Festival in Germany, where they had this musical on, inspiring me to create this necklace. I acquired a necklace of hand knotted shell pearls in beautiful colours of bronze/ cream, peach and shades of grey - the pearls are large and very beautiful, and though I normally would have cut up the necklace to restring the pearls, this one was so well made, I couldn't bring myself to wantonly destroy someones painstaking work - in fact, I had to agree that I couldn't have done it better ( a rare admission for me ). I decided to make a pendant for it, and string it onto the necklace directly. An agate druzy cabochon, surrounded by wire lace, with pearls and crystals thrown in just grew and grew until two days later, my muse declared it finished. Although wire lace looks pretty, it is hard work on the finger tips which resembled Shreddies by the time I was done - but hey! I love the way it looks, so won't complain. The pendant is very baroque in appearance, and suits the necklace - and the name!

If you want to know what shell pearls are, here's a link to a very well written article I found during my research - I couldn't have put it better myself.

And with this, I decided to put my Lacemania aside for a while - and my fingertips heaved a huge sigh of relief!!

I've had two new helpers this week - Charlie and Wilfred have moved in with us - they must have been techies in a previous life, they are fascinated by the moving cursor on my laptop screen, and keep trying to help me type this blog and won't take no for an answer. They are also interior decorators of sorts, and are helping me to remodel my house and change the decor, by systematically destroying anything they dislike - Mike's 40 year old German oil lamp (he's had it 40 years, but it was an antique when he first bought it) is something they have taken a dislike to - only he refuses to part with it - the boys are most annoyed that it is now out of reach!

Silver Monsoon

Monsoon in Kerala - Image from Sherly's Tours and Travels

With my fingertips sore and out of commission, I decided to give them a rest. I have these peacock feather pendants in from Indonesia - the ends have been fringed, much like a Rastafarians dreadlocks, with beads, and I love the effect. I used shards of electroplated quartz needles in the necklace, strung with spacers of crackle quartz in a deep peacock blue and a couple of enamelled beads from India. The quartz needles remind me of the silver rain that sheets down during a monsoon - the rain in the UK though persistent, is usually gentler.

Durga

Durga is a wrathful form of Parvati, otherwise known as Mrs Shiva, and the mother of Ganesh the elephant God. Kali is an even more angry form - women of all ages, at different times of their cycles have fleeting resemblances to one or another avatar of this multipurpose Goddess. According to legend, Parvathi was peed off at something- or someone (possibly, but not necessarily hubby), and she knitted her brows together in a frown - a third eye originated there ( watch out - the gaze from that third eye when provoked into opening can burn you into a frazzle). When someone else peed the already irritated Durga off, she went wild, hair unbound, arms akimbo - and she didn't stop until she killed the annoyance, hung his head around her neck and drank his blood.

Oops!!

She laughed and laughed, and did a dance that a whirling dervish would have envied, until suddenly to her horror, she found that she was trampling on her poor husband Shiva - Oops! she said and stuck her tongue out - and an ancient photographer took her picture (or maybe the wind changed and her facial expression stuck), so she is doomed to being immortalised as the crazy one with her tongue stuck out, hair wild, with strings of demon's heads hung about her person.

This story, I am sure will resonate with my female readers - we've all been there, pootling along, minding our own, when along comes this nuisance - whether we turn into Durga or Kali depends on the irritant!

Anyway, I digress - this necklace is made of a pendant from the Banjara tribe in India, with two paisa coins from 1962. I put them on a rope, which can be tied so that the pendant sits where you would like it to and can be worn with all sorts of necklines. It looks like something Durga might like to wear - well, she's most definitely a Caprilicious woman....................

That's it for this week folks. Charlie has destroyed a bunch of silk flowers I had prettifying a dull corner of the house, and the two brothers are now flicking the flowers around the house like crazed confetti - I'd better go and rescue what's left of those poor flowers. Have a fab weekend, and I'll catch you next week, same time, same placexx

Hello folks, it's hot outside - and I love it. Statement jewellery has had to be put aside for a short while to extract every ounce of pleasure from the sun while we can get it. We spent a long weekend in Germany, by the Baltic Sea - and anyone would have thought it was the Caribbean, it was so warm.

My friend Margrit loved the little cubist inspired brooch I made for her, as I hoped she would, and found an outfit to wear it with almost immediately. She has a lovely, airy, Scandinavian-style country cottage, and the most beautiful garden, full of the most fabulous and lush flowers, bigger and better than anything I have seen in England.Equally, the slugs and snails (Schnecke - pronounced shnake as if spoken by Sean Connery) in her garden are bigger and eat more than any English slug I have met - she goes out every night with a torch to catch them in flagrante and drown them in a bucket of soap suds, and the deer (she calls them Bambi - aah! ) come in after she retires indoors for the night and chomp their way through anything the slugs haven't had yet - so it's a running battle to keep the garden going. Margrit needs to be vigilant indeed to keep her garden looking as lush as it does - I love my garden very much, but cannot imagine working quite so hard to keep it.

All the plants are cordoned off with invisible chicken wire

The back yard - 'Bambi' comes leaping over the hedge at night!

The garden grows indoors too!

Cosy in the candlelight with a glass of brandy

And the pièce de résistance.................drumroll................

The Baltic Sea at the bottom of the garden!!

Unpacking her second 'living room'

I don't need a tan, so was the most overdressed woman on the beach

I said to Margrit, I don't need a tan, I'm brown already - and, in an aside, thinking I was being humorous I added 'and, I have no white bits', to which she replied, quick as a flash, 'neither have I' - sure enough, I looked around and there were loads of people in various states of undress, sunning themselves into a 'no white bits' situation.

All except Amelie, Margrit's young granddaughter, who stayed determinedly pale as a little starfish, and was even more overdressed than I was, which is saying something!

Sleeping off a large, healthy breakfast of muesli!

A snooze in the beach basket

So that's all I did all week long, folks, roast myself gently on the sands along the Baltic coast. I had no time to make anything, and I've shown you the reason why. I trust you are all enjoying the summer too, and I will have something for you next week - I've had a few ideas whilst on my travels.Catch you next week, same time, same placexx

Hello good people, here's your weekly dose of statement jewellery from Caprilicious. Once I have posted this, I am off to Hamburg, to visit with a friend and have a few days away by the Baltic in her lovely bungalow by the sea - not that I'm rushing or anything, just saying..... My muse capriliciously tripped along from one style of jewellery to another, seemingly without a cohesive thought in her head, and I followed, led by the nose - I just do as I am bid and see what transpires (hubby often wonders why I won't follow him in quite the same way).............................

Chantilly

I blame my mother for my lacemania.

She was/is a true lacemaniac, and in my childhood dressed my sister and me in imports from around the globe - she turned up her nose at what was produced in India. Every outfit we had was edged with a hint of lace (imports were expensive, thankfully), and that has left it's mark on us - both of us drool over lace when we see it, but today I would combine it with other elements to detract from the 'girly' effect. Chunky jewellery, leather waistcoats, boho bracelets, trilby hats, slouchy boots, 50's sunnies (not all at the same time, admittedly - the gangsta rap look doesn't suit me either) - these are what I wear 'for badness', a word learned from Gabrielle, an old Irish friend!

I learned this style of wire work from an Indonesian friend - in her country these wire medallions are made into brooches to pin back their headscarves and it takes hours to painstakingly coil fine wire around a thicker wire, and then curve and coil the thicker wire into shape, embellishing it with beads as one goes along, without the use of any tools other than a pair of wire snips - but the final effect is so pretty, it is most definitely a labour of love.

Chantilly Lace

Chantilly lace has been made since the 16th century - handmade in France and Belgium and worn by fashionable ladies in Europe and America - and much loved by brides even today.

If my mother could have laid her hands on Chantilly lace when we were growing up, who knows what damage she would have inflicted on our psyches - todays little hints of 'badness' would have become a deluge, to counteract the Little Miss Muffet-ness of my childhood - Phew!

Embellished with turquoise beads and hung on a strand of aquamarine and gold electroplated crystals, it certainly is a pretty piece and worthy of my mother's daughter.

Whilst I love the colour that polymer clay and beads have brought into my life, it is no secret that wire is my first love.

Eclipse

I make this pendant time and time again - inspired by the work of Nicole Hanna , and I love it. It's asymmetry draws me to this design. The markings on the matte blue agate complement the wire work.

And as I went about my business, pottering about the house and going back and forth to work, my muse caught sight of a polymer clay faux bone medallion I made earlier, meaning to eventually turn it into a tribal piece - she decided the medallion had waited long enough and clicked her fingers -lo and behold, Zanzibar came into being! A silk, vaguely Chinese looking silk choker was unearthed, my stash raided for colourful wooden beads and Cowrie shells, and they were all put together using waxed linen. I think the necklace is fun and can be easily worn in summer with T shirts and linens, as well as in winter over jumpers. I have always wanted to go to Zanzibar which is an archipelago off the coast of Tanzania, once a Portuguese and then a British protectorate, a Spice Island that sounds warm and exotic - one day perhaps. Just now, I shall have to make do with the necklace.

Zanzibar

Sarayu

The Sarayu is a river that runs through the north of India and is a tributary of the Ganges. The turquoise beads in this necklace carrying the conch shell pendant, and the flow of the necklace, reminded me of a river - I used the 'stare hard at it and call it the first name that jumps into your head' technique. This technique works well when I like a piece of jewellery - Bang, a name jumps up and bites me on the nose - if, however, I don't feel any rapport with it, I could go cross eyed and anoxic from holding my breath and concentrating hard with no results. Needless to say, such pieces end up on the scrap heap.

The pendant is a black and gold disc from Indonesia - one I made earlier was red, black and gold and equally beautiful.

Earlier on in the year I made a pair of earrings I called The Bollywood Barbie Earrings - what I imagined Barbie would wear if she went to Bollywood. In the process of researching this for my blog, I came across Rachel Chitra's blog - she had written a post about the scarcity of dolls in India. We had quite a few virtual conversations, and I thought no more of it. Rachel is an Indian journalist and blogger and sent me this link today - she very kindly wrote a little blog post about Caprilicious Jewellery.

That's me done before my little mini break in Hohwacht. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same place same timexx

P.S - I know more of you read me than you let on - go on, put your heads above the parapet and leave me a comment, show me some love darnit, I deserve it - wouldn't you agree?? - the app might ask for your email id, but don't be frightened - it is just to make sure you are human and not a robot selling snake oil from Outer Mongoliaxx

Hello readers, how are you- I hope you've been enjoying the sunshine - we certainly have in the UK. Wirework and beads have been my friends this week - it has been difficult to tear myself away from the sunshine and go in to work, and I have spent whatever time I could spare sitting in the garden and playing with them. I saw some aerial pictures on Pinterest and I was inspired to recreate them in polymer clay, on the one rainy day we had at the weekend. Elysian Fields is a series of pendants inspired by these photographs which I then made up into necklaces.

Elysian Fields

The Elysian Fields are beautiful meadows in Greek mythology where the favored of Zeus enjoy perfect happiness and where they compose poetry, sing, dance, and tend to their chariots according to Homer - that's the best the ancients could think of when they imagined perfect happiness?!? The Parisians named the Avenue des Champs-Élysées after this mythical place ( more like Elysium, in my opinion and you can get more there than singing and mending chariots) - and anyone who has visited it will agree that it is truly one of the most beautiful avenues in the world - but you will need loads of money to find happiness there.

California Wetlands by Bioflyer on Flickr

Paddy Fields in Yunan from Getty Images

Chaloos Road Iran - image from Travel world CN

Luxor

The Souk in Luxor

I found the scarab, which is the focal piece in this pendant in the souk in Luxor when I went on a Nile Cruise. The scarab beetle was worshipped by the ancient Egyptians and thought to represent Khepri, the early morning manifestation of the sun god Ra, from an analogy between the beetle's behaviour of rolling a ball of dung across the ground and Khepri's task of rolling the sun across the sky.

Scarab necklace - Luxor

The turquoise blue of the scarab was offset by the grey and yellow of the wooden beads I found in India and the coral and turquoise beads I sourced from Nepal.

Mayan Steps

This is the Temple of Kukulkan in Mexico, also known as El Castillo. The stepped pyramids, temples, columned arcades, and other stone structures of Chichén Itzá were sacred to the Mayans from A.D. 750 to 1200. There are 365 steps, one for every day of the year.

Incredibly, twice a year on the spring and autumn equinoxes, a shadow falls on the pyramid in the shape of a serpent. As the sun sets, this shadowy snake descends the steps to eventually join a stone serpent head at the base of the great staircase up the pyramid’s side.

I am in love!!!!

I happened upon bismuth - this is a metal which one can buy in lump form, and when heated and cooled, it forms a step like iridescent structure, with the light dancing across it's surface. Bismuth is naturally a silvery-white color as a fresh crystal but acquires it's colorful, iridescent surface on oxidation of it's surface.

The stepped structure of a bismuth crystal is the result of a higher growth rate around the outside edges which generates an electrical charge activating crystal growth to a higher degree than on the inside edges.

Levitating a magnet - A Maglev

It is the only element that has been successfully converted into gold by Nobel laureate Niels Seaborg of Berkeley University in California. It is diamagnetic - it repels both the North and South pole equally, and can levitate a magnet. It is the only metal that contracts on heating!

But more, much more than this, it is beautiful and lends itself to wire wrapping. There aren't too many artisans making this type of jewellery - some attach a bail using glue, this is the only other way it can be suspended - it shatters like glass on drilling it.

Sourcing some for Caprilicious became something of a quest/ treasure hunt - I got my crystals from a UK source for ease of delivery, and so I wouldn't have to pay exorbitant postage / customs duty, and couldn't wait to make them up into pendants.

The back

The back

They are just as pretty on the back as they are from the front, and shine with an unearthly glow - I just love them. On simple leather necklaces, they are sure to attract attention.

Swarovski Rivoli Pendants

Swarovski Rivolis

Swarovski makes these beautiful crystals, with a faceted top and a pointy back - they are fairly flat and are usually set in bezels that can be purchased in bead shops or handmade beaded girdles. Nicole Hanna decided to set a challenge to wire wrap these Rivolis - she issued half a tutorial and left us to finish the piece without too much addition or subtraction, even the tools were specified - all the contestants received the finished tutorial as a gift for participating. I had never set a Rivoli before, but am not averse to a challenge, so I gave it a go.The main engineering difficulty was to secure the crystal securely to the wire bezel without the use of glue, prongs or any such elements, while keeping the design interesting, of course. I made a few of these, and the last one with the tutorial, as envisaged by our host, Ms Hanna.

Rivoli pendant

Black Rivoli pendant

Emerald green Rivoli pendant

The back

The back

Blue Rivoli Pendant

Tanzanite Rivoli pendant

And finally, this was the pendant made from the finished tutorial provided to all the entrants. You can find the other entries here.

And that's all I had time for, folks - I hope you enjoyed your visit with Caprilicious and come back next week, same time, same place. Have a great week in the meantimexx

FollowThe Caprilicious Jewellery Blog

Author

I'm Neena Shilvock, and I'm crazily addicted to jewellery. I've been designing and making quirky and interesting statement necklaces for the last five years and my passion hasn't cooled off one little bit - in fact it has got worse, such that I'm even dreaming jewellery.I'd love to get to know kindred spirits like you, so drop me a line and I'll get back to you, and who knows, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship. Write to me at jewellerybycaprilicious(at)gmail.com

Free Mini Tutorials

Caprilicious Jewellery

I am very proud of my body of work and what people say about it, here are some of the compliments I have received

'Neena,the necklace has just arrived & I can't find enough of the right words to do it justice. Somehow "stunning" "gorgeous" "exquisite" don't seem to fit the bill! It's definitely a statement piece ..................' LJ

'Wow received my jewellery to day. Love them, so beautifully presented in a pretty green box and many thanks for gift of earrings, lovely, thanks :-)' AT

'Hi Neena, just been busy all week at a folk festival.....my Mme Butterfly drew lots of admiration, as did my Ice Queen and someone leaned over the counter in a store of healing and crystals and exclaimed at my beautiful lapis. I so enjoy wearing my pieces and the attention they receive. ' LB

' Neena, I can't describe how delighted I am with Scherezade - she is simply breathtaking.' EW